Wavelets and Optical Flow Motion Estimation

This article describes the implementation of a simple wavelet-based optical- flow motion estimator dedicated to continuous motions such as fluid flows. The wavelet representation of the unknown velocity field is considered. This scale-space represen- tation, associated to a simple gradient-based optimization algorithm, sets up a well- defined multiresolution framework for the optical flow estimation. Moreover, a very simple closure mechanism, approaching locally the solution by high-order polynomials is provided by truncating the wavelet basis at fine scales. Accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method is evaluated on image sequences of turbulent fluid flows. AMS subject classifications: 68T45, 65T60, 76F99